1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method and a device for recognizing images.
2. Description of the Related Art
Together with advances in electronic equipment and communication technology, there are rapid changes also in the field of authentication for permitting entry or use. The authentication of a user is performed by a variety of methods for providing authorization to enter a particular area, use a particular device, and the like.
One of the most representative authentication methods involves checking whether or not a certain body part of a person matches a pre-stored reference image.
For example, a commonly used method is to photograph and store beforehand a particular body part that is unique to a person, such as the face, a fingerprint, an iris, etc., and then comparing the stored reference image with an image of the body part obtained by a camera to determine whether or not the person is an authorized user.
This type of authentication method requires obtaining and comparing images, and as this requires a considerable amount of computation, an expensive processor as well as a relatively long processing time may be needed.
Also, since the image obtained from the camera is not always obtained from the same angle as that of the reference image, there may also be problems in the stability of the processing.
Furthermore, storing the images of users' body parts in the system may pose a problem in terms of protecting privacy.